We beg to vehemently differ, Mr Speaker, Sir

a second vehicle allocated to him and other House of Assembly presiding officers, ostensibly to match the levels of luxury enjoyed by his counterparts in government.
Moyo, so it was reported, accused the Executive of allocating to Government ministers and their deputies, two vehicles each, while excluding him and his deputy, Nomalanga Khumalo, as well as Senate President, Edna Madzongwe, and her deputy, Naison Ndlovu, from partaking in such ostentations of wanton luxury.
Waxing lyrical during an interview with the reporter in question, Moyo asserted that he and his colleagues wanted to be allocated off-road vehicles in addition to their existing Mercedes Benz luxury saloons to match those of ministers and deputy ministers.
The Speaker said all presiding officers at Parliament were hiring off-road vehicles yet they were entitled to them for personal use when travelling to rough terrain.
The Speaker accused Treasury of claiming that there was no money to buy the vehicles yet all Executive members, including recently appointed deputy ministers, were driving better cars than him. I hold the opinion that if Moyo wants to own a 4 x 4 vehicle in addition to the luxury Mercedes Benz allocated to him by the CMED then he should seriously consider saving for the purchase of one from his own earnings as Speaker of Parliament.
Meanwhile, our politicians should be effectively disabused of the erroneous notion that they are elected to Parliament so that they can become the proud owners of luxury vehicles if they become ministers. On reflection, would it be too late for  a special clause to be inserted in the draft Constitution in the national interest; such clause to stipulate that a person who has never been gainfully employed or owned a car of their own in their life should be disqualified from standing as a candidate for election to Parliament?
The expectation of instant ownership of a brand new vehicle must not serve as an incentive for people to venture into politics. Being elected to Parliament must not be regarded as a clever strategy to by-pass the requirement of working hard to save money to buy a personal car.
It is no surprise in the circumstances that the usual utterance made during the maiden speech of most newly elected MPs is to demand allocation of a motor vehicle.
In the same article honourable parliamentarians were reported to have stated that they also wanted additional vehicles to be allocated to them. They claimed that their existing vehicles, as allocated to them by Treasury, had been damaged during Copac’s outreach programme. Citizens who work hard to buy their own cars normally have them repaired, not replaced, when damaged.
I strongly suspect the MPs were generously compensated for use of their vehicles during the said programme. As if these demands by MPs were not bizarre enough, the other day they demanded that Finance Minister Tendai Biti prepare exit packages for them at the end of the life of the current Parliament! What if the voters still want their MP to represent them in Parliament?
If the post-independence phenomenon of vehicular allocation to MPs is viewed as legitimate reward for election to Parliament then such vehicle should, at least, be one of modest proportions — perhaps a Toyota Corolla or similar. The argument that politicians require robust luxury vehicles, such as Land Rover Discovery, Jeep Cherokee or other 4 x 4 chariot to visit their constituencies, because a vehicle such as the Toyota Corolla cannot traverse rough rural terrain, is manifestly spurious.
Many Zimbabweans, who are the voters as well as long-suffering tax-payers,  underwrite the 404s, frugal Nissan Marches or ancient VW Beetles on the same rural roads. As for the majority, they simply walk or ride on kombis. If affordable, cheap to maintain, efficient and reliable vehicles, such as the Toyota Corolla can genuinely not traverse rural terrain then the MPs should exert more energy in campaigning for the improvement of those roads, so that they cease to be the exclusive preserve of Toyota Land Cruisers or Jeep Cherokees.
The Toyota Corolla has repeatedly been voted World Car of the Year. In Harare the 1.6 automatic model is reasonably priced at $33 397. This is the kind of vehicle that holders of university degrees who are appointed to management positions in the corporate world are allocated by companies at the beginning of their working careers; not top-of-the-range twin-cab Toyota Hilux, Isuzu KB or Nissan Navara. Most ordinary citizens don’t start their working life while sitting behind the wheel of a brand new Toyota Corolla, or even a second-hand one, for that matter. They ride to work for years on a crowded kombi, with thousands never graduating from that form of transport. Back to Speaker Moyo, according to him, his position entitles him to two luxury vehicles, one of them a majestic Mercedes Benz  S-Class, the ultimate in luxury motoring. Who ever makes the decisions on these allocations? Apparently on sojourns to his village Moyo drives a luxury Land Rover Discovery.
“These are our conditions of service,” Moyo states exuberantly. “Right now I am using a Discovery as an off-road yet junior persons like deputy ministers are driving better cars.”
These are the utterances of a supposed merchant of political change, who only a short three years ago most probably used a long-distance kombi “as an off-road” vehicle to his village.
If a Discovery is not good enough for the Speaker of Parliament, then what exactly does he want — a Ranger Rover Vogue SE, a Land Cruiser GX V8 or perhaps a Porsche Cayenne?
A $74 000 entry-level E-Class 200 CGI as offered by Zimoco, would be more than fair compensation for the benefit collectively derived by the population of Zimbabwe from the services of Moyo as Speaker of Parliament. The joint saving on the purchase of a Mercedes Benz S-350 ($141 640) and a Land Rover Discovery 3.0 V6 D ($126 411) currently at the disposal of Moyo, would be a staggering $194 051, enough to build a rural school or to launch a poverty alleviation programme in some impoverished  rural district.
The spectacle of the Speaker of Parliament in poverty-stricken Zimbabwe riding while ensconced in treated cowhides in the back seat of a Mercedes-Benz S-Class, which is the world’s best-selling prestige luxury sedan, is the ultimate in absurdity, to say the least.
Geoff Nyarota is former editor of Chronicle, and the Daily News. He can be contacted at [email protected].